That's right. An electric car company that had gone through THREE previous bankruptcies was somehow awarded big contracts using taxpayer cash to startup a facility in Indiana. And is now entering it's 4th bankruptcy after squandering $17 million tax dollars.

From a news story last year on a similar Green Car tech company folding in the exact same manner in Salinas, CA.:

A Salinas car manufacturing company that was expected to build environmentally friendly electric cars and create new jobs folded before almost any vehicles could run off the assembly line.

The city of Salinas had invested more than half a million dollars in Green Vehicles, an electric car start-up company.

All of that money is now gone, according to Green Vehicles President and Co-Founder Mike Ryan.

The start-up company set up shop in Salinas in the summer of 2009, after the city gave Ryan a $300,000 community development grant.

[Wait - anyone want to bet this was stimulus money? So they started this thing up with taxpayer money. There was no private sector involvement at the start.]

When the company still ran into financial trouble last year, the city of Salinas handed Ryan an additional $240,000. Green Vehicles also received $187,000 from the California Energy Commission.

[Ah, yeah. More government money to prop this thing up and keep it going. Still no private sector demand or involvement.]

Salinas Mayor Dennis Donohue said he was "surprised and disappointed" by the news. City officials were equally irked that Ryan notified them through an email that his company had crashed and burned.

[Yes, this is exactly how some green jobs pioneer who took over $500,000 of your city's money should inform you it's all gone and he's closing shop.]

Salinas Economic Development Director Jeff Weir said Green Vehicles flopped because of a lack of investors.

[From the beginning he never had any private sector investors. He had government money handed to him to 'start up' and when the government money ran out, the business folded.]

Donohue said he will work with the state to try to get at least $240,000 back from the now-defunct company.

Last year, Salinas city officials said they were excited about Green Vehicles moving from San Jose to Salinas because they wanted to turn Salinas into a hub for alternative energy production.

City leaders wooed Green Vehicles to jump-start the sputtering local company and turn Salinas into an "electric valley." Donohue and Weir both voiced their high hopes for Green Vehicles.

[Oh boy. You mean you went out to court a business that was starting up with no funds of it's own, so you gave them over $300,000 to move to your city? Followed by another $240,000 when the initial funds ran out? There was no private money involved, no private investors coming in? Now I don't feel so sorry for these guys.]

The start-up company promised city leaders that it would create 70 new jobs and pay $700,000 in taxes a year to Salinas.

[I'm sure they were very big on the vision thing, envisioning a never ending supply of government money to keep them afloat.]

Green Vehicles was supposed to be up and running by March 2010 inside their 80,000-square-foot space at Firestone Business Park off of Abbot Street.

Ryan had lofty goals, listing his company's mission as: "To make the best clean commuter vehicles in the world; To manufacture with a radical sense of responsibility; To engage in deep transparency as an inspiration for new ways of doing business."

[But apparently making sure there was a demand for the ugly looking 3-wheeled vehicles he wanted to make wasn't part of his mission. No demand = no private investors looking to put their money into this.]

Green Vehicles designed two vehicles, the TRIAC 2.0 and the MOOSE, which it planned to manufacture.

[Take a look at the 'clean commuter vehicles' Mike Ryan wanted to make:

On July 12, Ryan wrote a blog post announcing that his company was closing.

"The truth is that not realizing the vision for this company is a huge disappointment," Ryan wrote.

[I'm sure the disappointment of the people who gave you over $600,000 is greater.]

Ryan outlined three mistakes he made while steering his company into a brick wall. All three reasons boiled down failing to generate enough capital.

Actually looks like he had little trouble getting START UP capital as long as government bureaucrats in LOVE with this 'green car' vision were handing him $540,000 of the taxpayer's money. When it was time to make that big shift to running his company on profits instead of government handouts, he discovered nobody wanted to invest in what he was making.

From dz at the Ann Coulter forum:

Quote:

You notice he was unable to attract real investors (ie - private money) but he scored over 1/2 million tax dollars by saying he'd generate $700K in tax revenues for the city.

But of course. It wasn't the Salinas bureaucrat's money, it was just the taxpayer's money.

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